Doha: Hosts Qatar’s perfect record at the 24th Men’s Handball World Championship will put to a severe test when they take on unbeaten Slovenia in the Group A match at Lusail Mutlipurpose Hall here today.
Both the teams have won the two matches so far in the six-team group and a third victory will secure them a place in the pre-quarter-finals knockout stage of the championship.
“Slovenia are very strong opponents, they reached the semi-finals in the previous World Championship. We need to prepare well and play our best game if we want to beat them,” said Qatar right back Abdulla Al Karbi.
But Qatar Spanish coach Valero Rivera knows that his boys have a difficult task at hand. But the Spaniard can take solace from the fact that he was at the helm of affairs at the Spanish team when Slovenia lost the semi-final match of the 2013 championship.
“We are going to play against number four from the last World Championship, where Qatar finished 23rd. I believe that gives you a bit of a clue to the challenge we are facing,” Rivera said after Qatar’s win over Chile on Saturday.
The 61-year-old from Zaragoza is targeting a place in the quarter-finals for his team, the best result till date for Qatar for any World Championships.
The hosts have not been able to make it to the quarter-finals in the previous four World Championships.
The best performance came in Portugal where they picked up the 16th spot, in 2005 they came a distance 21st and in 2007 and in 2013 picked up the 23rd and 20th places.
However, recent form and good results have given the hosts lot of hope. Qatar finished their final preparations unbeaten after they had already proved their ambitions for the international stage by winning both the Asian Championship and the Asian Games handball tournament, each for the first time in 2014.
The hosts won against Brazil 28-23 on Thursday and on Saturday defeated Chile 27-20. The next two are against world champions Spain on January 21 and Belarus in the concluding group match on January 23.
Slovenian coach Boris Denic on the other hand said his team will seek to maintain the winning tempo.
“Even though we are now on two wins, we cannot relax in any match, but will have to start on our next task right away.”
“We have won twice so far, but against Qatar it will be a totally different game,” Slovenian goalkeeper Gorazd Skof said.
The other Group A clash between Brazil and Belarus will be a do or die battle, as both the teams have lost the two matches they have played so far.
The duel is a crucial one as the winner will keep their hopes alive of qualifying for the last sixteen stage of the event.
“It’s still possible to qualify, since we lost to the group’s strongest teams. We are definitely still in contention,” hopes Siarhei Rutenka, the Belarusian top star.
“Nothing is lost so far, we still have two matches ahead. If we win two, including the one against Belarus, we should be in the next round,” Brazilian top scorer Felipe Ribeiro said.
In the third match of Group A, defending champions Spain are outright favourities to win against Chile and a secure a place in the last sixteen.
The defending world champions had two shaky, but victorious matches against Belarus and Brazil and are the clear favourites against Chile.
If they take their third consecutive win, they’ll have secured a spot in eighth-finals.
“At a World Championship you never have easy opponents, but still we can and we need to improve,” said Spanish coach Manuel Cadenas, who is “fully confident” that his team can go all the way again, at least to the semi-finals.
On the other hand, Chile twice had not a glimpse of a chance against either Slovenia and Qatar. So coach Luis Capurro sees the unequal duel against the world champions as “another chance to learn for our young team. Our aim to play better from game to game, and that will also be our approach to the match against Spain.”
In the other matches, Croatia with two wins are in with a chance remain on top of the Group B and to qualify for the pre-quarter-finals if they win against Iran.
Meanwhile, Bosnia-Herzegovina and FYR Macedonia clash of Group B will be the first of three Ex-Yugoslav duels in this group.
Macedonia are on the verge of qualification after wins over Tunisia and Iran.
Bosnia are in a tricky situation after their defeat against Austria and face a must-win situation in the game. THE PENINSULA
